Bad Vegan: What Happened to Shane Fox? Where Is He Now?
Sarma Melngailis (@sarmamelngailis) just had it all; career, fame, wealth, everything one could ask for, except she was single. But the position of the lover in her life seemed to have been filled when he met a guy Shane Fox on Twitter in 2011. Her life turned upside down with his arrival. After just a year of meeting, they tied the knot in December 2012.
From then on, everything she worked so hard for, was essentially doomed. With the coercive control Shane began exercising on Sarma, she went putty in his hands and did everything she was told to do.
At one point, Shane Fox had Sarma convinced that he was immortal and he could make her and her dog immortal, if only she would funnel her restaurant’s fund to him.
Psychological abuse started getting more intense with time. Shane devised tests for Sarma to prove her love and loyalty for him. He is reported to have resorted to cult-like techniques such as gaslighting, sleep deprivation, and sexual humiliation to control her.
Shane Fox managed to extract $1.6 million from her when she transferred that amount from her business account to her personal account from January 2014 to January 2015. She also stiffed employees after which they staged a walk-out. So, they got charged with fraud and violating labor laws by Brooklyn District Attorney’s office.
In May 2015, she fled with Shane after which the restaurant got closed permanently. Just a year later, the pair were caught in a hotel room in Sevierville, Tennessee when they ordered a pizza with their real name.
After being caught, in 2017, Sarma pleaded guilty to stealing from investors as well as criminal tax fraud charges. She was sentenced to four months in New York’s Rikers prison. She was required to pay $1.5 million in restitution.
Whereas the master manipulator and the cunning conman Shane Fox pleaded guilty to four counts of grand larceny in the fourth degree and was sentenced to one year in jail and five on probation. He was ordered to repay $840,000 to the investors of the restaurant as well.
He finished serving his prison time for a year at Rikers and his five-year probation is ending this May after which he will be allowed to leave his home town Massachusetts.
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